self portrait performance

For my performance video, I was inspired by not only Sophie Calle, but also by the fact that next month is mental health awareness month. For my piece I decided to incorporate Sophie Calle’s Dumped by Email series, in which she demonstrates her form of heartbreak and sadness. But I decided to do my own take on this. Heartbreak and sadness come in different forms and is different for everyone. I wanted to do my best to show people what heartbreak can look like when dealing with mental health. Our emotional, psychological, and social well-being all contribute to our mental health. It has an impact on how we think, feel, and act. It is important to pay attention to our mental health because if we do not then it can lead to depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorders. The list goes on. One of the branches I wanted to focus on though, is dissociation. I had learned about this about a year ago and felt it was important to share, although a lot of other disorders are just as important. Dissociation happens when there is a disconnect and a lack of consistency between ideas, memories, environment, behaviors, and identity. It is also a disorder that I feel not many people are aware of. In my video I tried my best to depict what a day in the life of someone who deals with association goes through. I feel that a lot of people relate to this without actually realizing it. We dissociate when we zone out except, we have to ability to bring ourselves back to the present moment. Someone that deals with dissociation is basically zoned out with the inability to zone back in and may even feel like they are not in their body. In the video I am showing how I am going about my day and although there is background noise, it is not loud enough because I am not paying attention to it. You will also hear heavy breathing in the background to show how that person (me) might be more focused on their breathing than what is going on around them. As I am blinking (video fades out) the video continues to a different point in my day almost abruptly. That is to show how I was only really “present” for a few seconds of my own day. In the end I look to my side very slowly, to show confusion.